EAI Fellows Program Working Paper Series No.13

Abstract

Citizen support for civil and political rights is a hallmark of democratic governance and necessary component in Asia’s democratization process. Citizen support for these rights exists to the extent that political elites allow the creation and protection of democratic institutions and practices. With the advent of global opinion polling, recent research has begun to examine the levels of congruence/incongruence between mass demands for democracy and standard measures of democracy. This paper examines how Asians evaluate specific civil and political rights in their country by using survey data from 24 societies along with supply-side indicators from the Freedom House organization. The analysis uncovers strong citizen satisfaction with the political right to vote and moderate satisfaction with civil rights such as freedom of speech. However, comparisons with supply-side measures as well as a multilevel test uncover relatively limited congruence for most of the rights. Mass support for specific rights were often high or low regardless of levels of institutional supply or whether a particular society was classified as free, partly free, or not free. The imbalance between mass support and supply levels in various parts of Asia highlights both current and future democratic challenges and possible setbacks.

Author

Matthew M. Carlson is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont.

 This paper was submitted to "EAI Fellows Program on Peace, Governance, and Development in East Asia" supported by the Henry Luce Foundation based in New York. All papers are available only through the online database.

Citizen support for civil and political rights is a hallmark of democratic governance and necessary component in Asia’s democratization process. Citizen support for these rights exists to the extent that political elites allow the creation and protection of democratic institutions and practices. With the advent of global opinion polling, recent research has begun to examine the levels of congruence/incongruence between mass demands for democracy and standard measures of democracy. This paper examines how Asians evaluate specific civil and political rights in their country by using survey data from 24 societies along with supply-side indicators from the Freedom House organization. The analysis uncovers strong citizen satisfaction with the political right to vote and moderate satisfaction with civil rights such as freedom of speech. However, comparisons with supply-side measures as well as a multilevel test uncover relatively limited congruence for most of the rights. Mass support for specific rights were often high or low regardless of levels of institutional supply or whether a particular society was classified as free, partly free, or not free. The imbalance between mass support and supply levels in various parts of Asia highlights both current and future democratic challenges and possible setbacks.

The current global wave of democratization reached the shores of Asia beginning with the Philippines (1986), South Korea (1987), Mongolia (1990), Thailand (1992), and Indonesia (1998). Although the number of democratically elected governments in Asia has increased, observers caution that the recent institutional supply of civil and political rights is critically low in many parts of the region. According to a recent annual review by the Freedom House organization in New York, some of the most pronounced setbacks for freedom’s march around the world have occurred in Asia in such places as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Myanmar, and Malaysia.1 However, the focus on the institutional supply of civil and political rights by the Freedom House organization overlooks mass support for the ideals and practices of democracy, which scholars argue is required for the transition and consolidation of democracy to occur.2 What citizens think about the electoral process and their support for specific civil and political rights is therefore a critical ingredient of the democratization process.

Citizen support for civil and political rights across societies is also important because it is assumed to reflect the level of institutional supply. According to congruence theory, “democratic institutions are supplied on a level that is congruent with mass demands for democracy.”3 With the advent of global opinion polls, recent scholarship has begun to test congruence theory with mixed results thus far. Whereas one study finds a weak relationship between mass support for democracy and standard indicators for the supply of democracy, another finds stronger support when corrected measures are utilized.4 In a study on human rights, limited congruence was uncovered for most regions of the world with the exception of Asia.5 Although mass support is believed to reflect institutional supply, clearly more research is needed to investigate this relationship...(Continued)